when he

walked on earth.

Those are some pretty good lines. If I can ever learn to write as well as Jeffers I will throw all the apples on my table out of the window and they can have me. [* * *]

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

January 10, 1964

[* * *] Don’t remember writing a long letter but if you got one, fine. Sometimes when there is plenty of beer and cigars and the electric light hits the white paper and the chopper chops and that whore downstairs doesn’t bang on my floor I go on and on, a little cracked, kind of hypnotic, smoke and cold beer and PAP PAP PAP PAP PAP, and this, too, is good for what is left of the soul. [* * *]

“Frances” is Frances Smith, who had recently become pregnant with Bukowski’s daughter, Marina.

[To Ann Bauman]

January 23, 1964

Frances says she will write in a couple of days.

Little here. New tenant downstairs knocks on her ceiling (my floor) when I type. This, of course, disturbs the thought context all to hell. Doesn’t she know that I am the great Charles Bukowski? the bitch!!

Cold here and the life force drags on within, dull, putrid, limping. The job is white light, heat and madness. But then, starvation is a bother, and with either course I feel the coward.

Blighted god damned roaring stinking world.

Cheer up, dear.

the works,

[Unknown Addressee]

January 28, 1964

You knock on my floor when I type within hours. Why in the hell don’t you keep your stupid t.v. set down at 10:30 tonight? I don’t complain to managers, but it seems to me that your outlook is very one-sided.

H. Bukowski

Apt. #303

[Reply to Above]

[Sir:

It is not my T.V. set you hear, I don’t have it loud at any time.

I was told you work from 5:30, but your machine is going day night and Sunday. It is like living beneath an arsenal.

This is an apt house not a business establishment. You have had your television on loud until midnight and later. It sounds as if you have all kinds of machinery up there.

You would not be allowed all that noise and racket in any apt house where people live for peace and quiet.

I have been in this house 26 years, and have inquired from many people, and you are out of line.

apt. 203]

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

February 5, 1964

Thanks for sending the review. On the review: I don’t think I am “tough” but if the poetry appears that way it is only because they are used to a different content and style. I am more tired than anything and if I refuse to get heated-up over a Sunrise or the blooming of a peony, they think this is tough. Rest of review pretty much on stick, though, and does your printing achievement some justice, and should move some copies. Whoever wrote the article seemed to enjoy the book, and that’s all we want, that, and to get down off the cross.